Adventure vehicles is their thing. The modifications they make to their cars allow them to venture through the most unstable terrain of the country. That is their passion.
Last Tuesday was no exception. Fifteen 4×4 modified car drivers and their companions traveled from downtown Heredia to Acosta to help some of the families affected after Tropical Storm Nate.
At the beginning of the week the objective was to unite their passion with the experience that already had in difficult terrains, to be able to take food to the community of Bijagual. So they asked for vacations at their jobs, and without thinking twice they went out to help.
They call themselves “4 × 4 Emergency Brigades Costa Rica” and have already participated in disaster recovery processes such as Hurricane Otto in 2016 or the Cinchona earthquake in 2009.
At dawn they left for Acosta, where they met the Fire Department, which would guide their work. They drove on land that only their cars had access to. Then they went down and entered the mountain on foot, with food and clothing on the shoulders.
We walked 30 centimeters from the cliff. We were very scared by the landslides, but we were motivated to go to help people, to contribute a little,”
said Erick Martinez, one of the drivers.
In total, they delivered 30 food and cleaning kits, along with the food and clothing they were able to collect.
We got there with a broken heart. There were people who asked for the food and the clothes we had on and seeing that is hard (…)”
added Martínez.
Acosta was one of the most affected cantons by floods and landslides in recent days, which in turn were caused by rainstorms triggered by tropical storm Nate.
The emergency worsened on October 4th and now there are over three thousand people on shelters.
Eleven people died and hundreds of structures were completely damaged.
The Costa Rican Red Cross maintains its campaign to collect food and clothing on all its committees.